Continuing with its investigations into the border area development funds scam in Attari constituency, the vigilance bureau searched the house of a relative of former minister Gulzar Singh Ranike's personal assistant Sarabdyal Singh on Friday and seized 12 more cheques amounting to Rs. 10 lakh.

The vigilance bureau team also recovered some stamps of sarpanches and clubs from the house of Sarabdyal's brother-in-law Harjit Singh in Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar here. The search lasted for more than two hours.

Talking to HT, SSP (vigilance) Opinderjit Singh Ghuman said, "Acting on a tip-off, we searched the house and recovered 12 unused cheques issued by the district administration in the name of gram panchayats for development works. Since the cheques were original and not used, the money never reached the villages."

The VB had seized nine cheques valued at Rs. 10 lakh a few days ago during a search at another house belonging to Harjit in the city. VB officials said that since Harjit had also been named in the FIR lodged against Sarabdyal and bank officials in June, it seemed he played a key role in the scam after getting the cheques from Sarabdyal. "Earlier, we had recovered the material used in preparing stamps from Harjit's house," said Ghuman.

Both Sarabdyal and Harjit are absconding.

The VB has so far seized 21 cheques and some stamps, apart from procuring important property details of Sarabdyal.